Linked Languages Resources

Akan

Akan

ak

Akan, also known as Twi and Fante, is an Akan language that is the principal native language of Akan lands in Ghana, spoken
over much of the southern half of that country, by about 58% of the population, and among 30% of the population of Ivory Coast.
Three dialects have been developed as literary standards with distinct orthographies, Asante, Akuapem (together called Twi),
and Fante, which despite being mutually intelligible were inaccessible in written form to speakers of the other standards.
In 1978 the Akan Orthography Committee (AOC) established a common orthography for all of Akan, which is used as the medium
of instruction in primary school by speakers of several other Akan languages such as Anyi, Sefwi, Ahanta, and the Guang languages.
The Akan Orthography Committee has compiled a unified orthography of 20,000 words. The adinkra symbols are old ideograms.
The language came to the Caribbean and South America, notably in Suriname spoken by the Ndyuka and in Jamaica by the Jamaican
Maroons known as Coromantee, with enslaved people from the region. The descendants of escaped slaves in the interior of Suriname
and the Maroons in Jamaica still use a form of this language, including Akan naming convention, in which children are named
after the day of the week on which they are born, e.g. Akwasi (for a boy) or Akosua (girl) born on a Sunday. In Jamaica and
Suriname the Anansi spider stories are well known. Source : DBpedia